PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — One person is dead and another is critically injured after two helicopters crashed in Hammonton, Atlantic County, Sunday afternoon, officials said.
Hammonton Police Chief Kevin Friel said rescuers responded to a report of an aviation crash at about 11:25 a.m. on Sunday, and police and fire crews subsequently extinguished flames that engulfed one of the helicopters.
The Federal Aviation Administration described the crash as a midair collision between an Enstrom F-28A helicopter and Enstrom 280C helicopter over Hammonton Municipal Airport. Only the pilots were on board each aircraft.
One person was killed and another was transported to a nearby hospital with life-threatening injuries. Video from the scene showed a helicopter spinning rapidly to the ground.
The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board have been notified and will be investigating the crash, Friel said.
Investigators will likely first look to review any communications between the two pilots and whether they were able to see each other, said Alan Diehl, a former crash investigator for the FAA and NTSB.
“Virtually all midair collisions are a failure to what they call ‘see and avoid,’” Diehl said. “Clearly they’ll be looking at the out-of-cockpit views of the two aircraft and seeing if one pilot was approaching from the blind side.”
Although it was mostly cloudy at the time of the crash, winds were light and visibility was good, according to the weather forecasting company AccuWeather.
This is a developing story. Stay with KYW for the latest updates.